Re: [OT] Freelancing advice?

if anyone has any comments or helpful advice, I'd sure appreciate it.

The online sites are crud. The vast majority of developers are talentless "I read half of Perl & CGI" programmers. Their shoddy work makes any company that won't be bankrupt in 12 seconds stay very, very far away. So what's the end result? It basically turns into a total scam, 20 developers bid ridiculously low (so low its not worth your time), provide total crap for a product, client never uses online service again. Rinse, repeat.

So the solution? Stay away from the online sites, start your own business. Go after a niche market. Focus on excellent customer service, build up a reputation for quality work. It can easily be done part time.

Why are you still reading this? Get started.

Comment on Re: [OT] Freelancing advice?

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Re: Re: [OT] Freelancing advice? by jbeninger (Monk) on Jun 03, 2003 at 03:24 UTC
I disagree (although perhaps I'm one of the shoddy developers bidding low to provide total crap :) I think that the online sites are a great place to get started if you have nothing else. Do a few good quality jobs and you've got a network of contacts who would prefer your good work to the other scam-artists they've worked with from the site. Also, a number of the buyers are savvy to the problems with low bidders and choose realistic people who bid five times the low bid. I wouldn't recommend doing that forever, but as I said, it's a wonderful place to start, and get some experience and contacts. The most important part is to not be one of the shoddy scam artists - if you made a mistake and bid low (as I've did more than once at the beginning), see it through anyway. Your client may be your biggest source of work in the future. Cheers! James Beninger	[reply]

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Re: Re: [OT] Freelancing advice?
by jbeninger (Monk) on Jun 03, 2003 at 03:24 UTC

I think that the online sites are a great place to get started if you have nothing else. Do a few good quality jobs and you've got a network of contacts who would prefer your good work to the other scam-artists they've worked with from the site. Also, a number of the buyers are savvy to the problems with low bidders and choose realistic people who bid five times the low bid.

I wouldn't recommend doing that forever, but as I said, it's a wonderful place to start, and get some experience and contacts. The most important part is to *not* be one of the shoddy scam artists - if you made a mistake and bid low (as I've did more than once at the beginning), see it through anyway. Your client may be your biggest source of work in the future.

Cheers! James Beninger

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